Welcome to The Novel Business!

This site is designed for the serious author or small publisher – someone interested in operating like a business, including earning a sustainable profit.

Be sure to check out our 52-Step Marketing Plan, designed to propel your sales in just a couple of hours a week!

Can you find all this information online already? Sure you can. I’ve spent more than 15 years and thousands of dollars compiling all this information. What we accomplish here provides you with one place that either answers all your questions or points you in the right direction.

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In the summer of 2018, Google announced that any website without an SSL Certificate will display a warning to website visitors, telling them the site might be stealing their information and the website is not secure. I have seen this message many times and it has...

Your book cover has one purpose: to get a potential buyer to pick up the book. Even if they decide not to purchase it, the cover has done its job if it made someone curious enough to look closer—to read the synopsis, flip through the pages or read reviews. So how do...

Authors have a tendency to be myopic. For all the energy we place into writing imaginative prose, we generally don’t extend that imagination to our own careers. We think in terms of a three- to six-month book launch or perhaps, if we’re playing the long game, we give...

There are numerous ways to go about writing a book that makes a difference. One way is to show a set of circumstances through the eyes of the characters, and one compelling way to accomplish that is through their jobs. Below are a few ideas; I’d love to hear yours!...

Unless you are independently wealthy, there comes a time in a writer’s career when you have to work the numbers to reach your goals. Too often authors rely on a relatively small group of followers on social media or personal friends and family to buy enough quantity...

How long has it been since you identified your ideal target audience? Watch the video below or read this content below the video. Your ideal reader is the person looking for precisely what you have just written. They are passionate about reading your work,...

The billionaire Richard Branson recently asked, “What are you doing to change the world?” It is not enough for businesses to remain in business simply to make a few individuals richer; in fact, the opposite is true. Businesses should exist because they bring something...

With millions of websites, blogs and social posts competing for your readers’ attention, it’s important that you stand out. Studies show that pictures and video increase the likelihood that you will be noticed, causing readers to linger longer on your website or blog...

It seems that sensational nonfiction, particularly as related to politics, receives the bulk of publicity but accordingly to Simba Information Estimates, genre fiction is selling briskly. If you are an author capable of writing in multiple genres and you’re having...

If you are a self-published author, you may have recently received an email from amazon fining you for a shipment of books. Amazon refers to it as a “chargeback” but it amounts to a fine if your order was not fulfilled exactly as they want it to be. ...

The Internet has become a raging river with millions of pieces of information sailing past at breakneck speed. How can you make yourself heard above the roar, and get potential readers to engage in your social media posts and purchase your books? Here are four ideas:...

ROBO stands for Research Online, Buy Offline and it can be impacting your book sales. BazaarVoice has released their study of buying habits, and here are some takeaways: According to Rutgers University, 78% of study participants say they still purchase in...

We’ve all heard the stories of hack attacks, but we tend to think of them as perpetrated against large corporations and government agencies. When we consider our own websites, we might not have credit card information or sensitive data contained in the background, so...

Authors are a sensitive group. They feel emotions more deeply than most; they have to, to be able to bring scenes to life, from hopelessness and anger to love and elation. They do not read words, hear or see them; they feel them. The words morph into three dimensional...

There’s been quite a bit of talk surrounding Facebook’s new algorithm changes as the social media giant seeks to address criticism of its platform, most notably during the 2016 Presidential US campaign. As Facebook attempts to return to its original model—that of...

This is a peek preview of some of the tips from the 52-week Marketing Plan course on how to think like a journalist and increase your chances of getting your name in newspapers, magazines and online publications as well as radio and television. Discard the...

Monroe’s Motivated Sequence was established in the 1930’s by Alan H. Monroe at Purdue University. It was developed as a technique for organizing speeches that persuade people to take action. However, you can use the same sequence whether you are giving a speech,...

Change the menu link from “Blog” to “Articles” if your blog is part of your website. This changes your website visitor’s perception from casual musings to worthwhile reading. Remove the meta data—the author’s name, date of post and tags. The author’s name is...